Discovery of a third species pf Dragontail

[Silverstreak]

Discovery of a third species of Lamproptera Gray, 1832
(Lepidoptera: Papilionidae)

http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2014/f/zt03786p482.pdf

[Peacock Royal]

Sunny, thanks for sharing this journal article.
Must look closely next time when we shoot Dragontails in Thailand.

[Silverstreak]

Fed, You are most welcome ! :)


The Chinese Lep. Researchers are very thorough and well-versed, but little known by the Lepidoptera Community outside of China, due to most papers and research works being presented in Chinese, and these seldom/never reach the English reading Lep. circle .


In this Paper, they also pointed out the following discrepancy of :


The lectotype of Lamproptera curius (Fabricius, 1787) housed in The Banks Collection, BMNH, is here shown to be A female of Lamproptera meges annamiticus (Fruhstorfer, 1,909. ) which was probably collected by Koenig in Chanthaburi, Thailand in late January 1779.


Prevailing in order to observe the usage of names curius and meges an application will be made to the ICZN Code Commission under Article 75.6; meanwhile prevailing usage of the names is to be maintained.

[Psyche]

I think during Fabricius' time they don't designate a type specimen.

For example, if Fabricius descrbed a species from a collection of four specimens, one should be designated as holotype (definitive type) and the the other three as paratypes.
If no holotype is designated then all four are syntypes.

If the syntypes are lost, someone may designate another specimen from the same locality (hopefully) as lectotype (replacement type specimen) for future reference.
Obviously then in this case there is a mstery whether the lectotype was wrong in the first place.
Did Fabricius described a green-banded species as P. curius?
Or did whoever designated the lectotype was in error.
It would appeared to be the 2nd possibility. Fabricius did illustrate his species in his book.

The article showed the lectotype was a female L. meges annamitica & also pointed how the error may have arised.
The female meges is very pale & may appeared white if worn.
The ssp. annamitica resembles curius in having the uppermost window very small.

There are actually many instances where the type specimens lodged in museums are not what they are thought to be.

TL Seow:cheers: